![\"Mexico's](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/03\/mexico-city-temple-lds-728708-gallery.jpg\")
<\/a>Every morning during this tour, we\u2019ve started off with a prayer from one of us and then, once the bus was underway, followed that prayer with a brief devotional thought from another member of the group. \u00a0Yesterday, the devotional thought was offered by Miguel Vera, who actually grew up in Mexico City but now lives and works in Texas.<\/p>\n
For his brief remarks, he drew upon a 22 June 2018 article in the Church News<\/em> by Gerry Avant that was entitled \u201cThe most memorable part of the Mexico City temple dedication was these words from President Hinckley.\u201d<\/a> \u00a0I was so impressed by the words that he cited that I\u2019m electing to share them with you here:<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure everyone has had an experience that becomes embedded in his or her memory. Maybe it came through some action or something that was said.<\/p>\n One of my memories comes from the dedication of the Mexico City Mexico Temple Dec. 2-3, 1983. President Gordon B. Hinckley, then second counselor in the First Presidency, conducted and addressed some of the sessions to dedicate the temple, which was the first in Mexico and the 26th worldwide.<\/p>\n As he began his address in one of the sessions, President Hinckley spoke with a quivering voice as he testified that souls \u201cfrom the other side of the veil\u201d were present. \u201cAll rooms (of the temple) are filled with faithful Latter-day Saints,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I am convinced there is a larger, unseen congregation participating with us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n President Hinckley then named specifically individuals who had key roles in establishing the Church in Mexico, beginning with Brigham Young, who sent missionaries to the country. He stated the names of several of the missionaries and the first mission president. He named the first Mexican who was baptized, and pronounced the names of several others who had occupied a place in the history of the Church in Mexico.<\/p>\n President Hinckley then proceeded to give the talk he had prepared.<\/p>\n I suppose most of us have been in congregations when the person conducting the meeting has acknowledged certain people, such as a member of the stake presidency or other visitor and, later, has said something to the effect, \u201cThere is another person I failed to introduce.\u201d Something like that happened during the dedication of the temple in Mexico City.<\/p>\n President Hinckley had been speaking several minutes. He paused and explained that there was another person from the other side of the veil he had not mentioned. In a strong voice filled with emotion and joy, President Hinckley exclaimed, \u201cWelcome, Father Lehi! Oh, how your heart must rejoice!\u201d<\/p>\n I was seated on one of the front rows in the celestial room. I wanted to turn around and look in the direction where \u201ca late comer\u201d might have entered the room. The moment seemed so real that I felt, surely, I could see what Father Lehi looked like.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t see that great Book of Mormon prophet, and I can\u2019t affirm that President Hinckley saw him with physical eyes, but I\u2019ve no doubt that the Spirit let President Hinckley know that Father Lehi, indeed, was present that day in that temple.<\/p>\n President Hinckley spoke of other temples as a fulfillment of prophecy regarding Lehi\u2019s descendants. \u201cSix new temples have been dedicated this year,\u201d he said. \u201cThese were unplanned in terms of particular prophecy but most of these temples have been built to serve descendants of Lehi. \u2026 I believe the Lord has touched His prophet (then President Spencer W. Kimball) to bring into play those processes by which He is remembering ancient covenants concerning descendants of Lehi.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n We attended sacrament meeting today in a chapel on the grounds of the Mexico City Mexico Temple. The entire Mexico Area presidency were present on the stand \u2014 Elders Hugo Montoya<\/a>, President; Sean Douglas<\/a>, First Counselor; and Mois\u00e9s Villanueva<\/a>, Second Counselor \u2014 and I eventually learned the reason why: \u00a0There was an area leadership training meeting underway over the weekend, and so the sacrament meeting was exceptionally well stocked with stake presidents and the like. \u00a0Which probably explained why, when we entered the chapel a few minutes before the commencement of the service, it was so very, very quiet. \u00a0I thought it by far the most reverent congregation I had ever encountered.<\/p>\n At the conclusion of sacrament meeting, we spent some time in the adjacent Centro para Visitantes del Templo de la Ciudad de M\u00e9xico, which is very well designed and very attractive. \u00a0It features a copy of Bertel Thorvaldsen\u2019s Christus<\/em> and has a particularly good section on the origins and history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a> in M\u00e9xico \u2014 including the difficult issue of the Third Convention<\/a> and the moving story of the Mexican martyrs Rafael Monroy<\/a> and Vicente Morales, who were killed in Hidalgo in 1915.<\/p>\n Incidentally, you can read about the martyrdom of these two Mexican Latter-day Saints in Mark L. Grover, \u201cExecution in Mexico: The Deaths of Rafael Monroy and Vicente Morales,\u201d BYU Studies Quarterly<\/em> (1995) 35\/3<\/a>. \u00a0Moreover, their story is told in a 52.5-minute black-and-white BYU film, produced in 1966, that is entitled And Should We Die<\/em>. \u00a0It is available online<\/a>, although the quality of the sound and the film\u2019s visual sharpness aren\u2019t quite ideal. \u00a0I saw And Should We Die<\/em> at some sort of ward activity shortly after it came out; I was very young and I\u2019ve never seen the film since, but I\u2019ve never forgotten it. \u00a0I think that I\u2019ll watch it again one of these next days.<\/p>\n After spending some time in the Visitors Center, we walked over to and around the Mexico City Temple itself. \u00a0It was the first to be built in M\u00e9xico or, for that matter, in Central America or in any Spanish-speaking country, and it remains the largest in the country. \u00a0Its exterior features design elements drawn from Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican architecture, which makes it unique among Latter-day Saint temples.<\/p>\n Then we went to Mexico City\u2019s great\u00a0Museo Nacional de Antropolog\u00eda. \u00a0But I\u2019ll write about that tomorrow.<\/p>\n Posted from the Ciudad de M\u00e9xico, M\u00e9xico<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 Every morning during this tour, we\u2019ve started off with a prayer from one of us and then, once the bus was underway, followed that prayer with a brief devotional thought from another member of the group. \u00a0Yesterday, the devotional thought was offered by Miguel Vera, who actually grew up in Mexico City but now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":25713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19672,2905,5136,18835,788,641],"class_list":["post-107641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hinckley","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-lehi","tag-mexico-city","tag-mormon","tag-temple"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
\n
<\/a>